The Durant Family

For those friends and family following this that do not know much about the people I work with, I don't know that I can impress upon you what it means to be a member of The Durant Family. Let me set the stage: it is a large school, a multi-track year-round middle school which requires a large staff of about 125 people.

I have taught there since 2002, and each year there are several staff members, students, and student families who are met with some tough times. Deaths of loved ones, surgeries, illnesses...and it is really something the way we all rally around these people. The staff members send out what has become the traditional 'thank-you mass email', which is much more moving than that description suggests. These emails are powerfully worded, the author so appreciative of whatever amazing outreach of love has been bestowed upon them in a difficult time. When I open these emails, I always smile - " Isn't that so nice? Durant came through for someone again! We sure do care about our own..."

I mention all of this because the other day I received in the mail my leave forms from Wake County Human Resources. (I had only had 16 1/2 sick days, not nearly enough to cover a regular maternity leave, let alone the current situation my family and I are in.) I opened the form and saw it - twenty-nine days. Members of the staff had donated their own hard-earned vacation days...a total of twenty-nine of them. Twenty-nine. How do you write a thank you email to people who have given you the incredible gift of six weeks of time with your family when it's needed most? What could one possibly write that would somehow accomplish giving enough thanks for such an act?

I also instantly had an even higher appreciation of these thank-you emails. How hard the author must have worked to consider his or her words to convey the deepest appreciation. For the first time, I truly understood the enormity of their gratitude. And even more than feeling loved, how they had felt so completely humbled. One could certainly never feel deserving of such immense generosity.

As I said, this is not rare but commonplace generosity at the school where I am lucky enough to teach.

And that makes it all the more special.